Who am I?

That's okay. Sometimes saying nothing to yourself and others is the best thing you can do (but only if you come out of that funk ). You know I've been dealing that that very thing!

 

Rose,
I hear ya. I won't have the name change, keeping my married name- but I get it. Have been a stay at home mom for the past decade (ahh, decade!) and reentering the workforce- no college degree, etc. It's intimidating, to say the least.
But this is the fun part. You get to figure out (and me too) what YOU actually like. The things that make YOU happy. Lots of mine, I'm finding, are quite simple and inexpensive or free- easy to incorporate into my life.
So, I get the fear part, but remember underneath that is an adventure.

 

I'm asking myself the same question....one of the things that absolutely horrified me once I realized I was gay was just how much else of myself I had buried in the process. My relationship with my wife began as I was working through some very devastating family events, and my straight marriage was something of a life preserver at the time, and I relied on her for almost all my social activity, friendships and activities. It was very safe and comforting at the time, and resulted in a life so full that I really didn't even have the time to think about anything other than managing all her busy-ness.

As I contemplate an eventual divorce somewhere down the line, and a new life, I get a little shiver down my spine as I wonder what I even WANT out of that new life. I know that I want a relationshiip eventually, don't want to move from a stifling straight relationship into a stifling gay one. Step one has to be figuring out, who is this person who has been in hiding for such a big chunk of his life? What does he like to do, and what kind of person is he? How can I be 52 years old and not really know?

 

I can so identify with what you have said about being subsumed into the life of a spouse. It's as if I had put my own interests and friendships prior to the marriage in suspended animation.

I lived on my own for 8 years prior to getting married, what I'm realizing now is that I simply reverted to that life pattern since being separated, living cheek-to-jowl next to my old apartment (which happens to be a 10 min walk to where the kids live with her now).

But, to address Rose's question: here's the thing about the "self", it is almost entirely contextual, a reflection of our surroundings and the people we surround ourselves with.

We don't have a self like we have a liver or a spleen, it is not some unchanging physical entity within ourselves. The self is an act, it's playing a role. When married, I was husband and father. I played the role of bachelor before that, now, I'm playing the role of "gay divorcee" and in my new job I'm now playing the role of "Director".

The only difference now is that I know that I am playing a role, I know it's an act, I know that I will see myself most clearly in the eyes of others, I know that I am reflections of reflections. Like any actor, I will dress the part, say the lines and participate in the "play" that tells the story of my new, gay life.

But here's the thing: it doesn't matter! I cannot grasp the actor behind the role, the self is fundamentally insubstantial. I am who I am performing!

Given this, why do we choose to play the gay role? Well that's just the thing, we didn't choose that play, this is where the mystery of our sexual attractions lie, we are playing the part in the context of realizing we are unchangeably gay.

What you are going through is "learning the lines", an actor in-between roles, what you are experiencing is the life of an actor without a part to play, and it induces a kind of vertigo. Until you get that part right, in your new life, you will feel like it's opening night...every night.

No wonder you're anxious!

 

I, too, was on my own for about 8 years after college before I got married. In my case, I started off by playing my parents' "script", then ended up in improv hell when I lost most of my beloved older generation in the space of about 3 years and went into emotional shell shock. I was far from coming out, but I was so very, very close to seriously considering the possibility that I was gay (although coming out was only an EXTREMELY distant notion), but after all the change, I just couldn't face another drastic shift. So I backed off and ended up replaying much of the role my dad did after losing HIS older generation, and created a new family to replace what I had lost. Not only are we creatures of habit--it's not always OUR habits that we are creatures of!

But I did end up very quickly singing with a church choir, a large chorus, and two other offshoot groups (all at the same time!), and I expect that once I actually am out on my own again, it won't take much for me to start improvising the new lines and figuring out who this old/new person is.

Along with that cold fear of "Who am I now, and how do I do this?", though, comes the realization that the possibilities we gave up years ago are still there for us, and we can revisit them with the eyes of the other experiences we've had since then. Personally I'm more concerned about the first couple of steps. I'm petrified of escalators and always end up holding up a string of people as I try to get on the damn thing without losing my balance. But once I'm on, I can hang on and ride to wherever I want to get. It's going to take awhile to make those first steps, I think. But I'm looking forward to wherever the escalator takes me once I can get myself on to it.

 

Rose, thank you for asking the question that is on my own lips.

For me it seems that these two come in a tangle, who am I and what do I want? I always seem to be playing a reel (thinking of my love of movies here) out onto a screen in real time. Like I'm almost always observing but not participating in what is going on around me. Whoever I am to be, if it is at all as GW suggested (and I think he is accurate in his analysis of the "self"), I want it to be someone who is actually engaged in what is going on around him. That means to me right now, finding friends where I really don't have to hide anything and giving myself time to rid myself of some stupid old habits. Most importantly, and I truly hope, it involves being in a relationship with a guy that pulls me out of my own pathetic inward world.

You are free now in a way that is scary and incredible. So don't try to be anything scripted. Give yourself time to explore and permission to make some mistakes. Re-frame those hiccups into learning experiences and just laugh and move on. And please, share it with us so I can learn from your cliff notes because I am a bit nervous about getting to where you are now; even though I think I was ready for it yesterday.

 

Rose, Pal works just fine!

Good for you. My shame is not at being gay either, it is at the rest of it. Mostly my own lack of a sense of personal integrity, I stayed in the closet way way too long.

Baby steps are good. They really really are. Have fun, be happy and enjoy moving on.

 

Thanks Rose for posing the question that seems to be on all of our minds. I think everyone, gay or straight, is an actor playing a role in many parts of life... but we long-closeted folks deserve the academy award.

So far, no one I've come out to has admitted to suspecting I was gay, which is strangely disappointing. After putting on such a big act for so long, how the hell are we supposed to know who we are and what we want. After coming out to my wife about 2 weeks ago, I find myself alone in a rented apartment and longing to be back home with my kids and the comforts of home.

The only thing I know for sure is that I want to stop suffering. I was suffering in the closet living a life without integrity. Now, I'm partially out and am suffering the loss of stability and feeling the guilt of hurting the ones I love. I don't yet know if I made the right choice. Only time will tell. Good luck to us all in finding ourselves and our path to happiness.

 

Well wrote Spaceman. Yes, on the lighter side, I find it much more disappointing when I tell someone and they are surprise vs. someone and they are not.

Can't imagine the pain of not being around the kids. I know the guilt. You said it yourself, however, living a life without integrity, suffering in the closet...do you not think those things robbed your wife and kids of you long ago? The best you? I know that for me, this is exactly what has happened. I want to find myself, and my new self, so that I can give something to them again; that will even help my wife more than I've helped her in a very long time.

Yes, I'll second it, good luck to all of us!

 

Yes palimpsest, in many ways living in the closet turned me into a shell of a person who was unable to be truly "there" in life and for my family. My wife could feel it... and not being able to fix it caused her pain. That was a big motivator to come out. Now that she knows the truth, she is in much worse pain, which I truly hope will subside. For the kids, the current pain is worse than anything they experienced while I was it home, and that's incredibly hard for me to handle. I had really expected (maybe naively) that my wife would allow me to stay in the house, at least for a transition period, to ease the trauma for the kids while we all adapted to our new reality... but she won't have it. I still have hope she may come around to the idea. But is that really what I want? It is at this moment as I sit here in my apartment alone.

 

I know its a scary period for all of you and I may be there shortly myself who knows. But I am excited for you all. It may be a bit of envy on my part I don't know. I have heard the comparison of recently out adults going through adolescence. It does compare adolescence is a scary time with no road map. Difficult at times but wonderful because the possibilities are endless. Now I am being a little romantic about this I know. But think of all the people who, because of what ever situation life has put them, in would like a chance to start an new and have a chance to really find themselves. Just remember to enjoy the journey.